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Aeris

Tutorial improvement suggestions

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I think it's time to post a thread with suggestions on how to improve the tutorial. I couldn't find the Tutorial feedback thread so this contains mostly my own opinions, and I would be happy to hear more suggestions since there are surely things that I've missed!

I am of the opinion that the game needs a tutorial rather than just dumping people in the wilderness. Why?

1) The GUI is pretty unintuitive in the sense that you will have a hard time to figure it out even if you have played other MMOs

2) To make it harder for grief invasions since it has a free trial account type, so some process to weed out the laziest ones is good

Currently

The current tutorial generates a large number of pop-ups with a huge amount of text in them. They contain a lot of useful information written in different colours. The pro of them popping up is that the player cannot miss them, but personally I see a lot of cons with the pop-ups:

* In the game itself we are not guided by pop-ups that guide us or tell us what to do, so it's pointless to teach the players to expect them

* A friend played around with the settings before entering the tutorial on a new character and what we discovered is that changing the resolution makes large parts of the pop-ups completely unusable since they are so heavily dependent on pictures

* When I walk through the tutorial on a new character I go by the text colours to see what I need to do. I only do the bare minimum and never read the text surrounding it. It is a very easy pattern to figure out and once you noticed the text colours you don't have to read anything apart from the text of the right colour to be able to move on

* Time is spent on teaching players how to perform certain specific tasks. These tasks, however immersive they may be, will mean nothing to a player that has never played the game before

Improvements

* Skip the pop-ups completely. In-game all information we are fed comes to us through the Event tab, integrate that into the tutorial

* Cut down on the amount of text. Write only the most essential things and take it step-by-step rather than all at once in a huge chunk of text. This will also remove the need for colour-coding certain pieces

* Cut down on the use of pictures. My opinion is that it might be best to skip it entirely unless a good way to present them is established, in a way that contributes to the learning experience

* Explain how things in general are done rather than giving instructions on how to perform specific tasks

Focus of the tutorial

* The first thing I would like to see in the tutorial is an explanatory walk-through of how the GUI works. How to activate the tools, what to press to open the skills window and how to open the Escape menu + other things like that

* A detailed walk-through on how to access and use the wiki, both the in-game one and the browser version. Underline information such as what it means when it says "active" and "passive" in the creation info box

* Explanations of what a settlement is and what benefits they provide

** This explanation should be very brief and refer to wiki pages with a more in-depth explanation. Links to those wiki-pages should be posted in a PM-tab once the player has teleported to one of the servers, since this is where the information will become relevant. Other useful wiki links should also be included in the PM-tab

* Showing off what Wurm Online is all about! Let the player walk through/past:

** An area with different terrain types as part of a beautiful landscape

** A half-finished terraforming project where it is clearly visible that someone has manipulated the terrain

** A mine tunnel leading to another exciting site such as

** A block with differently sized and shaped houses of different kinds

** A forest with different tree kinds ending in an area with penned creatures and a walk-through on how to fight

Edited by Aeris
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I think a "participate if you want to learn" system would be really cool, a walk through of what the game has to offer, as well as signs at each place that offer a change to try it out, if you wish to just walk through it and ignore the scenery, by all means, but if you want to learn the game, you can stop and try out crafting, mining and digging.


 


Good ideas!


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+1


make use that personal mission thing to be 'newbies missions' instead silly tasks >_> ..


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Id like to see this in the tutorial to be improved. Yep. +1


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I think a "participate if you want to learn" system would be really cool, a walk through of what the game has to offer, as well as signs at each place that offer a change to try it out, if you wish to just walk through it and ignore the scenery, by all means, but if you want to learn the game, you can stop and try out crafting, mining and digging.

 

Good ideas!

The problem with this is that some players will just skip everything and you end up with players constantly asking the most basic stuff you can imagine.

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The problem with this is that some players will just skip everything and you end up with players constantly asking the most basic stuff you can imagine.

 

Make a command that teleports you back to the tutorial area? Just say to them go back and read everything again. We also got Wiki.

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Add an option at the begin of the tutorial that says "I was invited by a friend to play Wurm and that friend prefers to teach me how to do things past the WASD"

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I'd say, go back to basics.


When i started the tutorial were a set of "quests" from NPCs in the starter town.


Maybe changing it to something like that would be the answer.


I'd suggest carving out a piece of GV, turn it into a "faux" open island, which would be a bit like a "boot camp" for new players.


Then make a "quest-like" thing "you're a new volunteer to go populate the lands of wurm, ya-da ya-da before sending you to the lands of wurm you must prove to us that you are ready and have the necessary survival skills to make it".


Give quests, the tutorial pop-ups come out with the quest tests, player does the tasks at a certain pace, and when he's done he teleports to the land of wurm.


Integrate Aeris' suggestions along the flow of the "boot camp" quest.


Also make the new players start without tools, and they earn them with each new "quest", thus giving some sense of achievement and progression on the tutorial, instead of the current guided tour sense, which just makes people want to skip ahead.


Finally add a choice to skip the tutorial entirely.


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